Rice database to boost farm sector

MANILA, Philippines — The International Rice Research Institute has created a one-stop rice database intended to help improve the country’s farm sector.

The RiceStats database uses ontology to combine data into a one-stop accessible database with a displayable dashboard for rice statistics.

The database will contain data from existing household surveys conducted by IRRI globally and will include data from national bureaus and international organizations.

Such database does not exist for rice in the Philippines.

“RiceStats database will enable the dissemination of comprehensive rice socio-economic data through an easily accessible database interface on a wider scale,” IRRI representative to the Philippines Romeo Recide said.

“The project will provide a unique resource for agricultural and social science researchers, academia, policy makers, donors, and investors in the rice sector and beyond,” he said.

The platform runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) such as AWS Glue, Athena, and S3 for data extraction, transformation and loading while the transformed data is stored in the AWS cloud warehouse Redshift.

For 13 years, AWS has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform.

Together with IRRI, the Department of Science and Technology-Advanced Science and Technology Institute and AWS are the cooperating organizations for the project.

The project is funded by Asi@Connect, the fourth phase of EU funding to the Trans-Eurasia Information Network program, which was launched as an Asia-Europe Meeting initiative in 2000.

“IRRI believes that the AsiaConnect project can help fulfill a number of sustainable development goals through improved access to education and research resources across the Asia-Pacific,” IRRI Agri-Food Policy Platform leader Jean Balie said.

Asia Connect empowers Asian countries by enabling them to participate in collaborative programs like RiceStats database. They also bridge the digital divide that exists within the global communities of research, education, and health.

It successfully established a regional research and education internet network from scratch in 2004 and progressively expanded its geographical footprint over the years.

During this new phase, greater emphasis will be placed on delivering the project with increased involvement of additional partners within the Asia-Pacific community.